Kaiam has one of the largest PLC facilities in the world. This has been specifically designed for high capacity and throughput, and hence ultimately low device cost. This is achieved via the use of equipment all set up to support the processing of 8” silicon wafers, and the choice of a deposition technique which is many times faster than alternative approaches.
Kaiam also has a technological advantage when it comes to athermalisation of PLC devices. This is a method whereby the PLC device can operate over a wide temperature range with no thermal stabilization, and hence no required power or electrical control circuitry. This is important for example in Telecomms equipment locations such as Central Offices where power reduction is key, and because of space limitations, the ability to site the equipment away from power sources is advantageous.
The Kaiam athermalisation is done ‘on-chip’ and this results in much simplified (and hence lower cost) module level packaging, and also lends itself ideally to low power, low cost active/passive modules based on hybrid integration.
